Kenyan teenagers stand a chance of winning a scholarship worth approximately Sh4.7m if they participate in an international science competition. Dubbed Google Science Fair, the competition has an aim of encouraging 13-18 year olds “to be curious, ask questions, and perform science experiments to answer those questions.”

The Google Science Fair has been running for five years. The 2015 contest is asking teenagers to change the world by posing the question, 'what will you try?' These four words also double up this years theme.

The announncement of the Google Science Fair 2015 came with a video which encourages teens tog et into science as it is intrinsic.“The desire to try new things is built in to you. Now take that desire, apply some science, and get ready to change the world,” recommended the video which goes on to add that “every accomplishment started with a love of trying things.”

Kenyan teengagers stand a chance of winning 10 prizes from the competition. The first of these is the grand prize. Offered by Google, “The $50,000[approximately Sh4.7m] Google scholarship is intended to further the Grand Prize winner’s education. If a team wins the prize, the scholarship’s value will be divided equally among the teammates,” read the website.

Unlike other years, 2015 has seen introduction of new awards for projects in different areas such as enginneering and natural sciences among others.

Each finalist also stands to win a prize. The 20 global finalist have a chance of getting a LEGO Education goodie bag, a free 12 month subscription to Scientific American magazine, a free year long subscription to National Geographic and a Google goodie bag.

The other eight prizes will be awarded to projects in various fields. The Scientific American Innovater Award for instance will be awarded to a project dealing in pure sciences while The Community Impact Award will be given to a project that “makes a practical difference in his or her community by addressing an environmental, health or resources challenge,” describes the website. There is also an Incubator award that targets any student between the ages of 13 and 15 years who is promising in a field of science.

The registration process is an intricate one but The Google Science Fair has broken it down in easy to understand step-by-step instructions. From the preliminary step of opening a Google account to the judging criteria, it is all explained here.These instructions also come with tips, additional resources and experiment resources.

Started in 2011, the fair has gone on to see various youngsters from all over the world emerge top either as a grand prize winner or as a finalist.Among these are Swazi nationals Bonkhe Mahlalela and Sakhiwe Shongwe who winners in the 2012 Scientific American Science in Action Award and also finalists in the 13-14 age group.

“We developed a Unique Simplified Hydroponics Method (USHM), to grow vegetables using local waste organic matter as growing medium and used waste cartons as garden containers,” remarked the boys who were then both 14 years old.

They continue to explain that their aim was to “ produce large quantity of crops in a relative small area, without harming the environment with chemicals such as fertilizers; while using what others call waste in our crop production”.Kenyan teenagers have until May 19 to submit their projects.